As I am nearing the final chapter of one of the most popular mobile games (mobage for those well versed in Nihon – go online slang) in Japan, I paused for a moment and thought to myself this:

Did I really enjoy this game?

To answer the second question, I must define what the first question asks.

For starters, Fate/Grand Order is a story by Kinoko Nasu. It talks about the Chaldea Organization and protagonists correcting the errors in history called “singularities”. You will be accompanied by Mashu Kyrielight, an employee of the Chaldea Organization as you go through these singularities.

As with the Fate series, you are a Master in the Holy Grail War. Objectives are almost the same: to get the Holy Grail. But in Fate/Grand Order’s case, instead of making a wish to the Grail, you obtain it to correct the singularity in that region.
Sounds like a fun game to engage to, until you get to the gacha part.

Gacha is a popular form of a gambling trade in Japan. Imagine a bubble gum stand. Instead of placing a ten – cent coin to just get the bubble gum, you spend way more cents to get the specific color of bubble gum that you want.
Placing probability rates doesn’t help in the slightest. And unless you’re a pay to play customer, be prepared to see the worst picks the gacha has to offer you.

Normally, equipment items and characters are separate gachas. Here in Fate/Grand Order, equipment items and characters are rolled from the same gacha pool (made even worse in Friend Point gacha where getting a silver character is enough salvation for your rolls), making the game the worst gacha pool that you can encounter in a gacha mobage.

But then, even with those disadvantages, the game grew in popularity. Even those who didn’t know about the Nasuverse can get a close look by what the story of this game advertises. The developing company DelightWorks only expected hardcore Nasuverse fans to be the primary customers. They certainly did not expect foreigners to understand their stories and references, which posed another problem to those who wanted to play this game.

The entire game is in Nihon – go. Those who wanted to play this game bad must have a basic understanding of Japanese language, or at least have an understanding of the kanji words “continue”, and “cancel”. Fortunately for some with only katakana and hiragana to rely on, the katakana made more sense for them since the word is written as pronounced by the Japanese (kyanseru, literally “cancel”).

Although there are ruby translations above the kanji, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t carry any double meanings. I can list them, but it would take two or three blog posts and discussions before these can be resolved.

If you’re only in this game for the story, I can only advise you one thing. You can read the pastebins that are generously translated by those who took part. Trust me on that one, even after all of the chapters I’ve been through, I’m lost on what just happened there.

As we approach the final days of the year of 2017, I would like to wrap this one with the almost complete review of this game.
I’ve been with this game through ups and downs (although my starting registration date is 2016), all I can say is that it’s mildly worth it.

Fate/Grand Order NA is released on June 2017 as a response to the foreigners who play FGO. Needless to say, American fans rejoiced. Though there is still the issue of other people who are not able to understand the story and is dependent on the translations at pastebin and reddit (Yes, I am that man).

For the fans of farming materials, testing patience, with only one character from myriads of other characters from friend support as support character, then this is for you. It features RNG based drops and grind for mats at specific nodes of singularity. Also, with the introduction of 2 HP gauges (or even more) thanks to Break system, this game evolved in response of the players who wanted to test their fully leveled favorite characters or fully leveled “for gameplay” characters.

Gameplay.

Yep, this one had me going.

Before going to a node, there are some parts that are needed to be elaborated more, but I can give you an overview. The node icons state which mooks you are up against.

It’s a type of rock – paper scissors, but with classes.

Knight classes. On weaknesses, Saber is weak to Archer, Archer is weak to Lancer, Lancer is weak to Saber. By that triangle, you know which class resists which.

Cavalry classes. On weaknesses, Rider is weak to Assassin, Assassin is weak to Caster, and Caster is weak to Rider.

One exception to the Cavalry class is Berserker. Classified as Cavalry but is strong and weak against 2 triangles, except for another one…

Shielder. This is a special class that is NEUTRAL to all classes mentioned.

This has a third triangle, and it will be even more complicated if I discuss that one.

You will choose the support that you will bring. It maybe is the same, choosing one character, but it’s now classified into classes, as opposed to its earlier gameplay that you can only choose one character regardless of class and you have to scour for that specific class first among tons of players.

At the start of the party building, you are to choose the characters, equipment and mystic code. You can even re – arrange the party order. Maximum party groups are at 10.

Click on the far bottom right to be finished, or press the far top left to go back to choosing supports.

Mooks and characters here are divided into waves. Each turn deals you 5 cards of 3 characters in front of you. Whoever you choose first to 3rd will be your front row, so choose carefully. This is where the arrangement comes into play.

Mystic Code gives you 3 skills. Each code had different set of skills, choose wisely and use it to your advantage.

I myself had experienced a first turn kill using the characters they provided. They also had lots and lots of challenges to keep the player from being bored, such as NeroFest (dang that infinite resurrection buff – giving Nero and 12 lives Herc) and challenge quests (new mechanic after every event re – run in which they present mooks and Servants with certain buffs on an increased difficulty spike. It’s optional for some, but for others who wanted those golden mats, feel free).

Which brings us to events.

Events are sometimes categorized as those being categorized in the training zone (for announcements), or Singularities (a dedicated place for that event).

Some events may issue 1 or 2 battle nodes with low levels (for those with Servants with low levels; higher level Servants can do it in one card shot per turn), mission based unlocks (easy mode to hard mode), points gathering mode (medium to hard) or raffles (hardcore grinds are required to empty 1 – 10 boxes. Some may even go up to 120 and can still keep going).

Either way, the rewards can be either an event – only Mystic Code (will take up a whole post discussing this one), a gold Servant (4* rarity with skills of a 5*) or even an equipment card for Servants.

Some people consider events as a gift from the developers, only if they worked hard for it. I myself had 4 – 7 event Servants all maxed just because the mission based unlocks told me so.

Forgot to mention, this is the only game where they also capitalize on the lower rarity Servants.

Some 1 – 3 star Servants even outperform the 5* rarity Servants. Looking at you right now, Euryale and Mata Hari.

Well, all in all, I think that’s it. Game can be mildly bearable for some players here. It can give you good characters too as long as you work for it. Some can be game breaking too (especially those of lower rarities) as long as you level them up properly. Can’t blame this game too even though it has more downs than ups.

[spoiler="The doctor will see you now"][/spoiler]\n\n[spoiler="THE TRUTH ON MADOKA MAGICA"][/spoiler]

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Last edited by WalterShannon on Thu Mar 15, 2018 2:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.